Despite having lots of lights that I can see, in both natural and fixtures, this room is indeed very dark! It needs more ambient overhead lighting (a pendant or chandelier would be ideal) and a lighter paint color to help bring in more light.

I think the room is fun and modern. Wall color works. But the table does not go,with style of room. Go a more modern base and keep,the glass. Change out chairs to a high back leather. In a color, teal would work, Pier One sells.

Granite counters in a black with silver, then put in a black, silver and stainless mosaic back splash. Leave stainless behind stove.

You need to replace that fan immediately. Send me the current fan for proper disposal (installation in my kitchen) ;-)

I will arm wrestle Anthony Mills for the ceiling fan. Seriously, where did you get the fan? Love it.

A large part of the "darkness" problem is the spotlights with what appear to be MR16 bulbs in them. The light from these is very hard and white. It produces the "hot spots" you see in the photo and lots of shadowing. These bright white hot spots cause the rest of the room to be dark and feel shadowy. MR16's are good for displays, commercial lighting and sometimes art work but usually a poor choice for homes.

To fix this you need recessed or can lighting instead. This placement is for 5 or 6" recess which is the most common size. If you use smaller recess you will need to place them closer as the beam spread is smaller.

Recessed units should be positioned around the edges of the kitchen no farther out than over your head. If they are placed farther out the light will be behind you and you will be working in your own shadow. In the areas with no upper cabinets the cans should be placed in the soffits. There should be a can for each large cabinet section centered between the doors (so the light shines in the cabinet when you open the doors), one 5 or 6" or 2 - 4" cans over the sink and one in front of the fridge (this will be positioned farther out than the ones in front of the cabinetry). Yes, they will be spaced unevenly about the kitchen, but this will give you optimal lighting. You may need to argue with the electrician over this placement, but I am a lighting professional and this is the optimum placement.

The kitchen looks large so there should also be some recess in the central part of the ceiling or a light fixture that provides more light than that fan does. Be sure any recess in this area are not too close to the fan or you will have a "strobe" effect when the fan is on.

The lighting for the cabinet areas should be switched separately from any light fixture that is placed in the center of the room. Trims for the recessed should have the bulbs recessed up into the ceiling to minimize glare. Trim with a black baffle are less popular than the white baffle, but the black baffle will reduce glare and provides a greatly superior quality of light.

I would change the lighting before anything else then reevaluate.

The color is fine. I agree the table does not fit.

It is a lovely kitchen. With better lighting you will love it.

Lovely kitchen, your solution to make it brighter is to add anywhere from 6 to 9 recessed LED lights into the ceiling, its easy on the pocket book and Green. Its best to use 6 inch recessed lights you can easily purchase them from Home Depot or Lowes, and your electrician will happily install them over the day, you can get a remodel housing and no drywall damage should be created. Good luck.

First of all, the lighting is all wrong, as the post from RSR explained, solve that problem and then we can start talking. Because of the shadows and light reflecting strangely I can't tell if that's a polyester finish on the cabinetry....they look like a fabulous hi-gloss Italian finish and the paint color makes it look kitschy rather than sophisticated. I would do a simple OC color by Benjamin Moore, maybe Mannequin Cream, OC-92 or Palace White so the warmth of the cabinetry really takes center stage. I would bring the backsplash tiles up to the cabinets and I would do an exotic granite, maybe Delicatus, which has fantastic veining but a soft creamy base color.

Um...firstly....the fan light went out ages ago....and I'm sorry but I don't know where it came from!
Yes, I do agree we need more lights, and going LED seems to be a good option...
Sandi...I think the cabinets are fairly high quality, as the worktop is corian, the previous owners seemed to like to spend a lot of money...I'll look up the paint colours....thanx for your suggestions! :-)

LED recess are also a good choice, but good quality ones can be quite spendy. Although some areas do have energy efficiency rebates when you install them.

Good quality LEDs are usually available in several versions of white such as 2700K, 3000K, 3500K, 4100K. These will range from the 3000K, which is a more yellowy white light similar to incandescent bulbs, becoming more blue in tone as the numbers get larger. The 4100K will be a hard blue white light. Also better quality LEDs will be fully dimmable down to a low light level and the longevity will truly be in the range stated in their literature. I recommend Juno. They are not inexpensive, but this is very much a "You get what you pay for item."

Inexpensive LEDs will vary in color from light to light as they do not spend the money to sort the individual LED chips during the mfg process. When you have a number of lights in the same area, as you will, this will be very noticable. As you look across the room, what you will see is one light will look noticably blue, the next will be more red, and the third may be more greenish.

While all LEDs claim to be dimmable, this is only "sort of" true. The inexpensive ones may not be compatible with the available dimmers (and so not dim) or may dim only to 50% rather than the 10% or less in a quality fixture. In addition the fixtures may not dim evenly.

I don't recommend scrimping on lighting quality, it is a make or break item in a room. People often economize on lighting as it is one of the last things installed and seems fairly straightforward, but it is one of the first things noticed when you walk into a room. Inexpensive, poor quality lighting can completely change the visuals in a room, as you can already see in your current kitchen.

It would be unfortunate to find yourself in the same position you are in now but with different fixtures on the ceiling and all that money spent.

Invest in the skills of a trained professional from a lighting showroom, you will be glad you did.

Maybe work with the windows as that wall could be a wonderful focal point. A center island with room for 4 chairs would nice and really add to workspace.
Possible add some glass to your cabinet doors above.

The Living Home Kamloops Kitchens

I agree that for most people there may be little difference between the various lines of lighting fixtures.

With multiple LED fixtures in one area you WILL see the color variation I have mentioned in both low and most mid range recessed housings as well as their tape, disc and undercab lights. The manufacturerers of those fixtures purchase lower quality LED chips. These chips have a broader color range in their binning process resulting in more color variation of the light from their fixtures. They are also more prone to early failure.